Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/847

Rh enabled to ascend into all the rivers of the Shuswap country. Skil-ap is expected to return at some distant period when "the world turns" and the good old days come back.

There were in the early times of Skil-ap other supernatural beings who roamed the world, the most important of whom was named Knil-i-elt; and it may be. Prof. Dawson suggests as a point worthy of inquiry, that in the stories related of Knil-i-elt and Skil-ap we find the mingling of mythological ideas derived from two different sources. Knil-i-elt had no recognized father or any relative but his mother, and was the offspring of the union of the woman with a root which is eaten by the Indians. Learning the mystery of his birth after he had become a great hunter, he reproached his mother concerning it, and said he would go away and never return to her. She then told him of all the evil and malignant monsters living in the country farther down the river, and he resolved to extirpate them. Among his exploits was a trial of strength with two friends, in which each should push his head against a rock and see which could make the deepest impression. Each of the friends made a shallow indentation, but Knil-i-elt pressed his head in to the shoulders. Impressions in the rock are still shown by the Indians, and Hat Creek, near the mouth of which they were made, was named from the incident. A conflict with the eagle monster resulted in the death of the eagle and the capture of its eaglets, pulling out the tail feathers from which, Knil-i-elt reduced them to common eagles, able to harm no man. At the outlet of Kamloops Lake was an elk monster that lived in the middle of the river and killed and ate men. Knil-i-elt, having made a raft, embarked and floated down the stream, when, before long, the elk seized and swallowed him. His friends, who were looking on, thought they had seen the last of him, but Knil-i-elt stabbed the elk to the heart with the weapon he carried, and then cut his way out of its belly and came to shore, bringing the elk with him, and invited his friends to eat some of the meat. He then reduced the elk to its present position, saying to it: "Yon will no longer kill men; they will in future always kill you." The badger was also in this early time a formidable monster, and had its lodge stored with dead men, collected for food. Knil-i-elt caught the badger, and striking him on the head said, "Hereafter you will be nothing but a common badger, able only to fight with dogs when they attack you." He further brought to life again all the people whom he found dead. Knil-i-elt met his fate from four witches, whose supernatural power was superior to his, and who turned him and the two friends who had accompanied him in all his adventures into stone.

On the trail leading from Kamloops toward Trout Lake the scanty remnant of an old stump protrudes from among a few